Several years ago, some friends gifted me their collected African and South Asian fabrics; you can see what I did with them here. More recently, other friends were cleaning out their basement in preparation for a move, and hoped I could might want the African fabric they had collected over many years. Of course I said yes! It includes a wide variety of styles and colors.
The fabric had been in their basement for many years, and smelled badly of mildew. I put it through multiple washings, and finally got it to the point where the fabric could be used.
Some of the fabric is in yardage, some is clothing that I cut up. There was just one large piece of yardage that they were reluctant to part with, but knew they would never do anything with themselves; they had been thinking of it for a tablecloth. I offered to make a tablecloth for them, in gratitude for the gift of the fabric. Deal! I finished the tablecloth yesterday. Their table is six inches wider than mine, so the drop will be less than you see here:
I had to seam together two pieces of fabric to get to the width I was aiming for, and the seaming was more challenging that I had figured on. After trying alternatives, I decided that the seam was less obvious if I changed the direction of the triangle bases, rather than having them all go in the same direction. And though I had thought I would cut and machine stitch, I realized that joining with appliqué would give me greater control, so that's what I did. Here's a close-up of the seam (down the center vertically)--success!
I finished the edge of the tablecloth with double-fold binding made from the same fabric. I didn't have enough to make bias binding, so I was pleased that when I tried some out cut on the straight of grain, it worked. The fabric is a close weave, and I didn't think it would "want" to go around a curve, but I'm glad it did. The binding makes a very nice edge finishing.
